“Maybe. For Mom, anyway. Christian will be there with me.”
His face jerks back. “She was there?”
My sister-in-law nods. “She’s trying to be there for him. I’m sure he wants that, but this day-after-day thing is bringing things to light. Whether she pretended it wasn’t the case or didn’t have a clue, I don’t know.”
Christian adds, “But you can watch the truth dawning in her eyes. She’s waking up to the reality of the man she joined herself to. Prepare yourself. She’s going to need you. Need us. And that’s not going to be easy.”
“Is there anything I can do?” I finally put in. It’s family stuff, and I’m family-in-law, but in a situation that’s beyond delicate.
“You’re already doing it,” Ayla offers.
“How do you figure?”
She tilts her chin to Liam. “He hasn’t killed anyone.”
“I haven’t even threatened it,” my husband says tongue-in-cheek. Though, to be honest, that is something.
“And he hasn’t burned anything down.”
“Lately,” the man at my side quantifies.
Imagine if he had, say, a sexual outlet instead, and could focus his energy there. I want to say it aloud. But if I were Ayla, I wouldn’t want to hear that about my brother.
And Christian is a man who wouldn’t care about Liam’s sex life. He cares about his wife and his daughter. Everything else either contributes or is a deterrent. I don’t want to fall on the negative side of the equation.
“No remorse? No anything?” Liam asks, as if he can’t fathom his father’s arrogance.
Christian and Ayla shake their heads in tandem.
“I’ll be there.”
“Be prepared for wild accusations. You show up at every event in his life as a villainous threat.” Christian says.
“We all do,” Ayla adds. “No accountability. Just victimhood and narcissism.”
My husband turns his face to mine, communicating without words, but not something I can put my finger on. Deciphering him is a sport that only I am trained for. But it requires expert-level experience, and I’m a novice at best.
Christian wanders the gallery that I now realize must be closed because there’s no one here but us.
I’m suspicious and should be, as it turns out, when he starts a whole new line of thought. “One more thing before you head out.”
I brace, waiting for whatever is to come, and hate how small I feel—like all three of them watching me shrinks me into a game-sized piece as they play chess.
“Okay?” I don’t mean for it to be a question. I hate how it’s my tendency.
“We’ve made some moves over the last several weeks. Strategic ones. Ones that we know will pay off, if not in dividends, then in our family.”
Well, that’s ominous.
I lift my brows, unwilling to interrupt.
“Since your trip home, Ayla and I?—”
“And you and I,” Liam interjects, as if I have any clue what’s happening.
“Have been buying up stock in Platt BioPharma.”
What? How? And how have I been doing that without my knowledge?
